If you photograph on negative film and scan it, you may want to invert the image in Lightroom.  Or, perhaps you like the “film negative” look, and want to invert your positive digital images.  In either case, if you have looked for an “invert” button in Lightroom, you will have found out that there is none.

Martin Evening has a video out on how you can create a Lightroom preset to invert your images.  It involves inverting one raw file using Adobe Camera Raw, updating the file in Lightroom to reflect the ACR changes, and then saving these changes as a preset that you can apply to other images in Lightroom.  To see the video, click here.

I have gone ahead and created a preset using his method.  It works on both color and black and white images.  You can download the preset here.   After downloading, in the Lightroom Preset Panel within Develop, right-click on User Presets, choose Import, and navigate to the file. The import process will copy the preset to the Presets folder — you can delete the version you downloaded.   After the preset is imported, simply select an image, and click on the preset.

Note that adjustments in the Develop panels are still operating on the negative, so they are reversed.  For example, sliding the Exposure slider to the right will darken your image rather than brighten it.   The same is true with Tone Curve adjustments, and all others.

Thank you to Dan for suggesting this topic, using the “Submit a Proposed Topic” button above.

UPDATE 8/2010:  See this post for an easier technique using Lightroom 3: https://laurashoe.com/2010/08/12/update-inverting-your-images-in-lightroom/